The Oscar model is included as part of a free Oscars Pack available from eyedesyn.com. Follow EJ (@eyedesyn) for Cinema 4D related tweets.

The gold material was sourced from Greyscale Gorilla’s Texture Kit Pro. I removed the dents from the base material by switching off the Bump channel and tweaked the colours in the Color and Reflection channel to reduce the yellow.

The Oscar model in Cinema 4D with default lighting is dark and unimpressive.

Greyscale Gorilla’s HDRI Studio Pack includes a seamless background. I used a mid grey to black gradient.

An Area light was used to cast a shadow, helping to ground the Oscar onto the seamless background. The Area light also helps to soften the blown out reflections.

A visible, volumetric spot light was placed directly above the Oscar. I used this to lock the Oscar into place and add some straight lines to the scene for variation.

Microfloaties was used to add some subtle floating dust to the scene. Microfloaties is free from Joelotron.com and handy for adding floating dust to your Cinema 4D scene. This could have been done with a particle generator in After Effects but it’s only a small render hit in Cinema and looks great. If you use it be sure to make a small donation!

The Global Illumination render helped fill the dark shadows on the Oscar and brighten the microfloaties.

The light and camera setup with Microfloaties also visible. The shadow casting Area light is high up on the right of the scene with only the falloff visible in this image.

After Effects Shape Layers were used as the base for the bokeh-style lens effect. Here I duplicated one Shape Layer containing 6 ellipses and stretched them to create the thick and thin strokes. These shapes were keyframed to have them drift gently in various directions. Using Shape Layers rather than a particle generator gave me greater control.

After Effects’ Camera Lens Blur effect was used to give the shape layers a bokeh-style lens blur.

Fantastic all round as usual. Microfloaties really is an absolute “must have” isn’t it. I’m sure you could have used a particles plate but it wouldn’t match the depth of the Microfloaties rig. Really nice.

Hi John! Amazing work as always. You wrote, that you composited in 16 bit. Does that mean that you disabled linear workflow in Cinema, as it’d would produce color shift in AE, or this was color shift you could leave with?
Thanks

Hi John! Not at all! I did not notice any issues. It’s just I find this quite old (since R12, if I’m not mistaken) feature quite confusing, because I can either disable linear workflow and work with whatever bit depth per channel I want, or I can enable linear workflow and get amazing color range, but then to get the same colors in compositing I have to change colorspace and linearize working space, which causes some of the colors to look different or even weird. I’m trying to educate myself on colorspace definitions through sites like prolost and others, though I still feel there’s quite a long way to really understand what’s going on. What’s your opinion on the subject?
Thanks.

Nice work! Nice use of Microfloaties – I’ve played with it, but haven’t used it in a piece yet. (I noticed the same brightness “pop” that Steve Caldwell mentioned. Around the 3 second mark. Looks almost like an adjustment layer or something pops on at that moment.)

Hi Ian, this is a breakdown of an actual project for a client and not designed purely to teach techniques. I love to model and could have modelled the Oscar but would have missed my deadline as this was a tight turnaround project. I use plug-ins because I have access to them and like the results they give me, but you could definitely use built-in Ae effects. Completing a project successfully is more than raw techniques, it’s knowing when to borrow/buy resources and what tools to use to get the job done on time and approved. Best wishes, John.

I’ve always thought, if you have the time, go to town with creating something from scratch. It teaches you and you have the pride of knowing it’s YOURS. I always shuddered at the thought of using AE templates…until I started working on my own (not for somebody else) and had limited time and tight deadlines.
John is right. Know when to be purely creative and know when to use resources.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”